The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 15, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

"For scholars and only the most devoted Dinesen-ites, then: bricks that prefigure the crystal wonder of Out of Africa."

The freight of sadness, stoicism, determination, and great grace under pressure is enormous in these letters, written by Dinesen from the time of her first arrival at Ngong in Kenya as Blor Blixen's wife until her departure 17 years later: divorced, alone, her lover Denys Finch-Hatton killed in an airplane crash, her beloved farm taken away from her management by the board of directors of The Karen Coffee Company, Ltd. in Copenhagen.
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"Dinesen's richly mannered, baroque narrative gives both distance and space to the stuff of fairy tales and imaginings and a somber ground to the fantastic."

An arresting group of the late Danish author's stories which have been hitherto unavailable here in beak form (only three tales are translated from the Danish; Dinesen wrote mainly in English).
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"The subject is the nature of courage and the morality of retribution."

Although it was well-received in its 1946 English translation, this melodramatic thriller cum political allegory—first published pseudonymously in Denmark under the German occupation—was disowned by Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen until a 1956 interview.
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"The writing needs no encomiums; every reader knows there is delight in store."

To any reader who met Baroness Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) first through her memorable Out of Africa these new pieces carrying us back to her African plantation will be heart warming news.
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"There is an oddly remote quality in the acceptance of moral codes of medieval times — codes which run the gamut from worshiping the remote star of a different social level, from acceptance of the inevitability of romance outside the bonds of matrimony, of fearful recognition of the powers of other worlds, etc. A few tales have a modern note — but even they are couched in language that belongs in another age."

An eagerly anticipated collection of twelve more "Gothic tales" is news for the sophisticated reader.
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"Anecdotal — incidental — in character, but it is the manner of telling that gives it such rare charm, the fluency and case and delightful with and subtlety, which characterized her Seven Gothic Tales."

The author of Seven Gothic Tales — presents here reminiscences of twelve years on a coffee farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
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